Tea
by Reine-de-Coeurs
Summary: Mrs Lovett, making tea for Mr Barker all day long, while he is worried sick about his wife. Pre-storyline.
1. Chapter 1

The door between the shop and the parlour cracks open. Nell starts sharp at the sound and whips round the other direction, wood spoon still in her hand. 'Oh! – Mercy, dear,' she says, voice not quite so steady as she'd fancy it being, when she sees it's only Albert standing for his long moment in the doorway. She checks him a smile and turns back round, the odd few drips of half-seasoned gravy landing on the floor by the toe of her boot. 'Good morning,' she says to him over her shoulder.

'Morning, dear,' he says, and stands across the counter from his wife. He sets his papers down, and his elbows go with them. 'Something wrong?'

Nell looks up in his eyes. 'Not a thing, dear,' she says, 'just a bit scatty today.'

She smiles at him; and Albert leaves his papers where they lie. He comes back round the counter to stand with her, peers into the pot she's stewing. 'Gravy, dear,' she tells him, and gives it another stir.

Albert leans over and takes up the wood ladle from her hand. They've both got chubby hands, Nell and Albert have. He gives her a quick look while he fills the ladle with the gravy. 'Don't mind,' he says, 'do you, Nellie dear?'

'No,' she says, and steps off to the side, 'no; go on, take it.'

He leans a bit over the pot, filling up the whole ladle. 'Smells lovely,' he says, and blows on it to cool. 'There onions in that?'

'Yea,' she says. 'Half an onion.' Nell cracks a smile and gives him a short pat on the shoulder. 'Getting awful good at that, you are.' Nell's teaching Albert little things, like how to mix spice and suchlike. Not that, mercy knows, he'll ever use it; but she's not quite so certain she's got anything to teach what he might much use, and she likes teaching it to him anyhow. Someday, she likes thinking, perhaps, when they've got a daughter, Nell can teach her everything there is. Nell bites her lip and gazes in the murky pot for half a minute. They might have had two daughters by now.

Albert tips the ladle quick past his lips, licks the bottom one when he's done. 'Well,' he says, crossing the room to fetch the papers back from the other side of the counter, 'I best be off.'

'Oh! –' Nell leaves the pot to stew where it will, and crosses the room too. 'Well. You have a good day, then, dear,' she says, and reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

'You, too.' He reaches down and kisses her on the other one. He takes up all his papers and heads for the door. 'Thank you, Nellie dear,' she hears him say, and then the shop bell as the door shuts.

***

Nell dips her finger in the pot, for tasting. It's a bit queer, she's been told; but she's always done it like that. All her fingertips are red and halfway singed from dipping. Quick as she can, she takes her finger out the pot and sticks it on her tongue. She swallows her bit of gravy, and then lets her hand fall all sudden to the countertop. 'Bugger,' she says to herself. It's thick enough, but missing something.

She bends down under the counters for the spice jars. Her hands fall on the coriander; she bites her lip while she stands back up. She stays for half a minute, taking the lid off the jar, the steam from the pot warming her face.

The sky's a lovely colour today, and the sun's out, just over the city, it seems like. But the sun and the sky, she knows perfectly well by now, will make a fool of you if you let them. Sunny out and bloody freezing, it is today. She can tell; she watches out the window, at everyone shivering in their coats. That's what March does, and today is March the fifteenth. She feels it in here, too; the kind of cold what chills your bones no matter where you are. Perhaps in a bit she'll put some coals on.

She sprinkles in the coriander and stirs the pot, and then dips her finger in again. Nell sucks at her burnt finger in the morning sunlight. 'Better,' she nods to herself. She's always loved the taste of coriander and onions.

***

Nell's fingertips are trembling where they lie, on the counter or the spoon. Her hands are shaking so hard that she's dropped a dough-ball on the floor three times this morning – but no matter; no-one knew. She flits round and round the shop, cheeks flushed with an awful fever she didn't see coming at all.

Upstairs, you see, Mr Barker is pacing, and Nell can pretty well feel everything he does. He don't know that, and she won't be the first to say so, but there it is. The floors in the house aren't too thick at all, nor neither aren't the walls. When Mr Barker and his pretty little wife first moved in – round a year past, this was – it got to be a bit unnerving, the way that when he walked round the upstairs, Nell could feel his footfalls in her boots.

But, like she mentioned, it's been a year. A year and two months and fifteen days, actually; they moved in last New Years' Day. So, she's pretty well used to it by now, of course; but he's not usually pacing so hard. Whenever he turns on his heel, she can feel it deep in her bones and it's all she can do not to gasp in her breath.

Her fingers grip round the edge of the counter, waiting to stop feeling so heart-sick. What in bleeding hell is wrong with her today, she'd like to know. Most times she's quite all right, even living next to him. She flicks her eyes up to the ceiling, sighs once, quiet. Perhaps, today not so much.

Mr Barker likes the mornings; and every morning, like clock-work, he comes down the side stairs at eight o'clock with a lovely smile on his lips, to go for a walk before the customers come in. Sometimes, when he's in the finances for it, he comes back with a bunch of yellow daisies for his wife, who likes them quite, so he's told Nell; or a lavender hair tonic for Mrs Barker's birthday, or something like that.

Every day, too, when he's either on his way out or on his way back, he stops in the shop for no reason but to have a chat with Nell; so the mornings have got to be her favourite part of the day too. But not _this_ morning; it's half past nine and he hasn't come.

'Oh, dear,' Nell sighs out loud as she pours flour into a bowl. If he only knew how raving mad he's driving her, just with footfalls; but he _can't_ know that, never. It's just a foolish sentiment; that's all it is. He's got a wife, and she's got a husband; but she can't help her foolish, gentle heart no matter what she tries. She's just got awful good at pretending; she's just silent about it.

She hears a groan from above her, belonging to lovely little Mrs Barker. Nell flicks her eyes up again, less urgent this time. She's everything a woman should be, Mrs Barker is. She's got a pair of the loveliest hands Nell thinks she's ever seen, and she's seen quite a few pairs of hands. Her eyes are lovely too, the kind of clear eyes what have never seen anything they shouldn't. Mrs Barker is still seventeen years old, won't be eighteen 'til August. Mr Barker turns nineteen in May; and Nell's nineteen since January.

Upstairs, Mrs Barker groans again, a bit louder now. Mr Barker takes a turn and says something to her. Through the ceiling, Nell can't hear what it is he's saying, but in his tone he's consoling and gentle. Downstairs, Nell stirs batter, slow with the spoon. She's staring at her fingernails, and all sudden she's got a screaming headache. She stirs away hard at the odd mix of flour and water, doing what she can to steady her breathing, but she knows her cheeks are flushed, the both of them. She touches her fingertips to her forehead and finds it burning. She's got a fever somehow, it seems like. She didn't have one when she got up today.

Nell hears a blind scream from upstairs, and looks up for a bit longer than a moment. 'Mercy,' she says to the room; when there's no one in the shop, she thinks everything out loud. When she screams, it turns out, Mrs Barker is high-pitched and shrill. But for now, Nell never has heard her raise her voice above a hum.

***

Mr Barker's footfalls tumble hasty down the stairs outside. Quick as she can, Nell ducks down under the counters and sticks her head in the drawers, just in time for the shop door to slam open. She can't even see him, but she knows he's standing there in the middle of the room; he has no idea if she's there or not. 'Mrs Lovett?' he calls, voice all gone hesitant.

Nell does an over-drawn gasp, mostly on purpose, and sticks her head up on the counter where he can see it. 'Oh! –' she says. 'Mr Barker!' She switches to a kneel on the floor and puts one hand up to the edge of the counter. 'You give me such a fright, sir,' she tells him, catching back the breath she lost on intent; 'I didn't expect you there.' She switches her eyes up to him, and her heart starts up the pounding in her ears.

'Well,' he says, and seems to be just catching up with his breath, too, 'I'm very sorry, I'm sure.' He takes a few steps toward her, puts his hands down on the counter-top. 'But the thing is,' he leans down to tell her, 'I'll need to go and fetch a doctor to my wife; she's soon to have the child.'

'Oh ….' Nell tosses her head up and stumbles to her feet, quick to brush the dust and flour off the front of her dress. 'Yea; I thought that might be.' She casts him a glance; even when she's standing up, he's so much taller than she is. She don't expect him to give back the glance to her, but he does; and her face flushes deep red. 'I mean,' she goes on to calm it, 'the walls ain't so thick, that's what I mean.' She offers him a halfway tossed-up smile, afraid she might have said something she oughtn't to, and hoping it don't make him think different of her at all.

'Yes,' he nods to her with a smile. He crosses round the counter, standing close by her. 'I wondered, Mrs Lovett,' he asks her, and what a gracious man he is, 'if I might ask you to sit in with her, just while I'm away.'

'Oh,' she says back to him, quick as the words are out his mouth, 'of course I will, Mr Barker.' She hasn't even thought of what he's asking her. He's standing right by her, on her side of the counter. She stands for a moment longer than she likely should, eyes big while she looks in his. Mr Barker, beautiful Mr Benjamin Barker, has got the most wonderful eyes there ever was. Nell has never been out of London, or even out this _end_ of London, but they're what she'd imagine a stormy sea's got to look like, his eyes are. 'Don't even worry about a thing,' she declares to him, all gentle, and never looking away for even half a moment.

He takes another half-step in her direction, and everything about him is scrambling, it seems like. His hand brushes over hers for no longer than a piece of a second, and he says: 'Thank you, thank you.' Nell forces a smile over her lips for him, kindly and put together nice, while her knees threaten to give way from under her. Mr Barker turns and bustles out the door, which slams shut as he goes.

It's the slam on the door what brings her back to herself, and she starts all sharp, standing by herself in the shop. 'Oh, Hell,' she says in another second. She starts up taking a turn round the room. 'I've not said …' she mutters to herself, and then draws a sharp breath. 'Oh _Hell_.' She curses herself, she does, but she couldn't very well say no, could she, now, not with him standing there like _that_. She has doubts as she could very well tell Mr Barker no over anything at all.

Well, she's said yes; she's told him she'll bloody sit in with his wife, so she will. Nell's never been one to back out a promise. She'll go, but it'll _be_ for him, and not for Mrs Barker. She takes up the bowl of half-mixed batter and tosses it out the window; it won't be of much use by the time she gets back, any-how.

She crosses the room quick and goes to the cabinet, takes out the gin bottle she bought last week. She uncaps it and tips it down her throat twice, straight off the bottle. She swallows a couple of deep breaths; the burn makes her eyes water at first. After her insides calm down a bit, she puts the cap in the bottle and closes it back in its place in the cabinet.

She goes out the door and up the side stairs, comes in the door into Mr Barker's empty shop. She don't see the harm in looking about for a minute, this whole thing being Mr Barker's idea in the first place. She knows; 'cause she knows if she was Mrs Barker, Nell would be the last person in God's green earth she'd want with her. So, look about she does. It's a lovely room, it really is, especially with the bay window. You can see the whole city from here, you can.

She's been in his shop before, of course, but she wasn't looking about then; she was looking at him, and at her hands in the moments she thought he might notice. She's sat there, in the chair across the room, while Albert's got shaved. At midday, the sun will hit just there, at Mr Barker's face. He's like a painter, she's thought, with all them lovely blades of his. He's always happy, doing what he does; it's an art to him.

And, of course, she's been in the shop to have her hair cut. Twice a month Mr Barker works on Nell's hair, and gives her half-price; another one of his ideas. The haircuts are bleeding agony, sure and true, they are. With his fingers cradling the locks of her hair, and his wrist-bones always brushing up against the back of her neck; it's so wonderful she can't hardly stand it. She coughs to get rid of the heartbeat, and her breathing gets shallow; so Mr Barker thinks Nell has always got a cold.

She shakes her head. Not today, she reminds herself; she isn't here for that today. She's just here because he's asked her a favour, and she's all too happy to oblige him, really. Nell bites her bottom lip and glances up towards the door to the side bedroom, where of course she's never been. 'Of all the bleeding things …' she murmurs to herself while she straightens out her skirt. She really does wish he'd have asked her for something else, anything else. He's never asked her a favour before.

She takes her steps across the room and knocks at the bedroom door. Nothing happens, but she thinks she can hear Mrs Barker's skirt rustling through the door; perhaps she's knocked too soft. She raps at the door again. 'It's Mrs Lovett,' she says.

'Oh,' says Mrs Barker, speaking soft like usual. 'Come in, then.'

Nell bites down hard at her bottom lip again and turns the knob. The door's lighter on the hands than you'd think it would be. She shoves hard at it, and it swings right open, leaving her nearly tripping into the room. Mrs Barker sits across the room in a green dress, her clear eyes on Nell, the pretty eyebrows raised. Nell's eyes hit the floor. 'Morning, Mrs Barker dear,' she says, voice a bit quiet, while she takes two steps round the room. Even today, Mrs Barker looks like a bloody painted portrait.


	2. Chapter 2

Within the hour, he's come trudging down the stairs and slipped the shop door shut behind him. The doctor's sent him out the room, he said. Nell takes one glance at him and rushes right over across the room. He looks dreadful, he does; his poor eyes are shattered, and she's never seen him so pale. He scarce looks like he knows how to walk right, either. 'You just sit you right down before you fall,' she tells him, hasty and quick, while she tilts him to the table by the window. Her right hand brushes against his back on the way, and she smiles behind him when he don't stiffen at the touch.

He collapses in the wood chair, his fingers gripping the edge of the table. Nell bends down to him. 'There, now,' she says, 'you all right?' He nods to her, so she nods to him and turns back across the room. She takes up the broom in her hands from a corner and sweeps the floor, absent, glancing back to Mr Barker every few moments.

She tries not to, with his poor humour in the state it is, but she ends up humming tunes while she sweeps. She always ends up humming when he comes round. He don't play nothing, she don't think, but it seems like he brings back out the music in her. His presence is always a welcome one to her; and he's making today just lovely in a way she knows it really shouldn't be. None the less, she's very glad he's chose here to come and stew, when for half the trouble he could have sat alone in his shop all the day long.

Once, when he looks particularly troubled, she stops for a moment, one hand on her hip. 'Poor man,' she says, quiet, and not aware she's said so out loud.

He's been staring off out the window; it's her voice what brings him back to where he is. He takes a quick glance up to her direction. 'What?' he asks her, almost lost, he is.

'Well, just look at you.' She sets the broom against the counter and crosses the room to him, both hands set against her hips now. She casts him a look, but he don't say nothing to her. 'You're trembling,' she says, standing to his side.

He cracks a tiny half-smile. ''Course I am,' he says, and looks her straight in the eyes.

Nell gives him a patient smile and a sigh he can't quite hear, and sits herself down across from him. She sets her hands on top of the table and bends her head, trying to catch his eyes. 'You should have _something_,' she says, one hand beginning to edge closer to his, just by a piece of a stretch of her fingers, not hardly enough for him to notice. 'Fancy a pie?' she asks him.

He looks up towards her, his eyes powerful kind, but still shaking his head a bit. 'No,' he tells her, 'I can't eat, I'll be sick.' Nell tilts her head and turns to a slow half-smile, thinking what a lovely man Mr Barker is. Likely as not this is even harder on him than it is on his wife. Upstairs, she saw, Mrs Barker is more aloof and resigned, like; she's floating through today like she floats through everything else. Whereas, Mr Barker's worried himself sick, poor dear.

'Oh, poor man,' she says again, and he don't look like he minds too much her saying so. 'You look like you could use a nice cup of tea,' she tosses at him instead. 'At least let me do that.' She chances looking him in the eyes, pressing her lips together. He can never know, but mercy, she don't want but to make him happy somehow.

He looks straight to her then, a faint smile passing his face. 'Tea would be lovely,' he allows her, 'yes, thank you.'

Nell's smile hits her ears as she stands up, pushing the chair up against the wall's corner. 'Very well, Mr Barker,' she tells him, 'coming straight up.' He watches her skirt sweeping across the room, a lovely pale blue; just exactly the same colour as the vest he's wearing, as it happens. His eyes fix on the strings at the back of her corset, swinging side to side while she busies herself by the stove. She starts up humming again while she searches round the drawers for the tea kettle. She works, quick and happy, setting the tea water, spending him the very best tea she's got; and all the while, the cheery flush don't leave her face.

***

Nell turns away from the counter and stands on her toes to reach into a cabinet. Her fingers close on the sugar jar, and she turns back round, taking up a tiny spoon to stir in it. She can't help smiling, glancing across the room with her eyes cast down. Sometimes she's glad she does have her pie shop, 'cause she's learnt so much about people, just by baking for them and suchlike, what she mightn't have found out otherwise. Mr Barker, for instance, likes his tea with milk and three spoons of sugar, just like she does; and Mrs Barker don't like tea at all.

Nell stirs the third spoon of sugar into the first cup of tea, her upward glances so flighty you might not even think they were there at all. She's not particularly even looking, but she knows very well that Mr Barker is watching her from across the room. She flicks her eyes down. She's going to have to make sure and wear this dress more often. She bends a bit over the tea-cup, purposeful. 'Well, now,' she says to him with a cheery tone, 'sugared up thrice like usual, if I'm right, Mr Barker?' She tips the spoon on the edge of the cup, and then sets it back in its place.

It takes him a moment; he gets deep in staring, he does, particularly when he's troubled with something. All sudden, he seems to realise he's took the odd moment longer than is likely proper, and coughs into his fist. 'Oh, yes, please.' He glances up and smiles at her, some sort of faint longing in his gaze.

She looks up to him. It's getting harder to draw her breath by the moment. He's got this way; he seems particularly to look at her like that when Mrs Barker isn't around. It's half enough to drive her right mad; well, good business it is that Mr Barker's the proper gentleman he is. That besides, he'd chop off a limb before he'd betray his wife; silly man loves the very air that Mrs Barker breathes. It's just, he casts Nell a glance the way he does, and she trembles like she never has.

She shudders too quiet for him to hear, and steadies her breath as best she can. 'You like cinnamon,' she says, her voice shaking ever so slight, 'don't you, sir?' She bites her lip, flicks her eyes downwards; she knows perfectly well that he quite likes cinnamon.

His brow crinkles a bit; she's caught him off-guard. 'Cinnamon?' he says, tossing her a bit of a tilted glance. He'd half-expected her to say something else, not that he'd care to tell her as much.

'Yes,' she tells him, laying one hand on the counter. 'Cinnamon.'

'Why … yes,' he gives her his answer, still the odd bit surprised, 'yes, I love cinnamon.' He's looking at her in another way now, a bit wondering, a bit amused; he's not quite certain what she's on about.

'Mm, I thought so.' She tips him a smile and stirs a helpful spoon of cinnamon in his tea. It darkens the milk, and floats nicely in the cup. She cradles the edge of the tea-cup against her hand and brings it over to him, stopping in the middle of the floor, leant a bit to one side. 'You know, I got some cinnamon the other day,' she says to him, the slight bit of a smile crossing her face again. She bends over the table and sets it down for him. 'I don't hardly never have any,' she says; 'I thought you might like it.'

Mr Barker blows on his tea, quiet and lovely. He swallows, and with it a smile hits his lips. 'Wonderful,' he says. 'You _are_ good to me.'

Nell laughs a bit under her breath, and shakes her head back and forth. 'Whatever you like, Mr Barker,' she smiles to him, crossing the room back again. She bends over the counter, prying open the flour jar with the tips of her shaky fingers. She can still feel his lovely eyes fix on her, warming her skin. And then, sudden as a gust of wind on a Sunday, there's one more shrill scream from upstairs, and Nell can't feel his eyes anymore.

'Will she be all right,' he asks her, nervous and hasty spoke, 'do you think?'

'I don't know, sir.' Nell makes ever so certain to go slow on her words, before she says something she shouldn't. She bites on her lip with her head turned away. She thinks perhaps she should leave well away just now, but in the end she can't help it. 'I've never had children of me own, even,' she speaks soft to him over her shoulder. No matter that she's only told him something he knows already; it seems to suffice and calm his humour, even if by just a bit. She feels the change on the air in the room, and turns back round to him, a slight, sad smile turning over her lips.

Mr Barker throws a look straight into her eyes, and leaves it there a long while, neither one even daring look away. 'Tell me,' he says to her, his eyes positively crashing, perhaps like the stormy sea does against rocks, 'that she will be all right, Mrs Lovett.'

All at once, Nell drops her eyes, and with them goes her breath. She knows very well that it's not any sort of request, what he says. She looks back up in a moment, all prepared to give him what he asks. A man like Mr Barker, she can't help thinking sometimes, should bleeding well have anything he likes. She can't very well tell him no, as ever, and especially not when he asks like _that_. So, she gives him a slow bit of a smile and tells him: 'She will be perfect, Mr Barker.' She turns away quick, hiding under a curl in her hair, and hurls the flour into a bowl.

***

By the time she's putting the glazing on, he's stewing his head round and round, half-through his third cup of tea. Nell's eyebrows are ticking upwards, the both of them. _Cor_, she's thinking, but makes particularly certain not to say out loud. _Silly man certainly can take up his tea, can't he, now? _She wonders for half a moment if she shouldn't slip a shot-fill of gin in the next one, but then decides that no, no, she _shouldn't_; it'd most like only worsen things. She leans over the counter and finishes the glazing on the last pie in a dozen, and then pops the whole tray of them in the tiny oven. She snaps the oven door shut and comes back across the room to Mr Barker.

She stands in the middle of the floor for half a moment before deciding there can't be too much harm in it, can there; and sits herself down at the table, right across from him. Nell never has took too kind to silence, most times, but this one, she don't mind too much. She knows pretty well he sees a comfort in her. You could say it's almost like she'd listened while he'd shed a tear, or some suchlike. She sits, watching him just out the corner of her eye, until he drains his tea-cup. 'Oh,' she says, and there's a certain longing spiced into her glance, 'let me make you another cup of tea.' She smiles to him and stretches out her arm for the cup.

He smiles back to her, too, but holds up his hand quick. 'It's kind, believe me,' he tells her, 'but I shouldn't.'

She stands up, being careful as to push the chair back to its place under the table when she's through. She sets both her hands on her hips and gives him a glance. 'And why not?' she asks him, with her head cocked to one side. Her eyes wait his answer, like they'll do for quite a time. She presses her lips together, just once. Well, no matter the reason: he's _here_ today, with her all day, until God bloody knows what time of day – or night, come to that. He's welcome, of course he is, to stay here just as long as he has to. But the truth is, a day spent all with him is the sort of thing what's more like to happen in a dream; and she just wanted to make him happy today, even if by a vague purpose.

His fingers curl round the handle on the tea-cup. With his elbow resting like it is on the table-top, he ends up holding the cup to the light outside. It's a beautiful sunny day, it is today, and the glint of the late-morning sun on the tea-cup is just lovely. He's looking at it, too, for his bit of a long moment. 'Well,' he asks, turning his eyes back to Nell, 'what's the price a cup?'

She opens her mouth, and then closes it right quick; her face goes all soft, and for a moment her eyes hit the floor. She's no less surprised by a question like that than she'd be if he'd got out the chair and slapped her. Well, certainly he does take a harder effect on her than he knows he does; poor man. Still, there's not a thing she can do to get rid of the colour raging on her cheeks. She looks a bit away, and then back to him, head still cocked. 'It's no charge, Mr Barker,' she says, her voice coming a bit choked and softer than she'd fancy it being; and she lies her open hand down on the table.

He sets the tea-cup in her palm, and with that, perhaps the odd bit of an understanding. He waits to speak until he's got just the right moment for it. She's at the counter mixing the next cup of tea when he tells her with half a wink and a smile on his lips: 'Well, by all means, then, go to.' She stirs in the cinnamon and milk with the spoon, while the loveliest warm feeling starts to flood her, despite the March cold. He's got the most peculiar way of making her smile just about whenever he likes.


	3. Chapter 3

_Something changes, hasty and urgent, in the room's air. Nell snaps her gaze up quick to find Mr Barker's beautiful eyes crashing into her like they never have. He slams his cup down, the tea splatting all over the table, but neither one pays it even a slight half-bit of mind. He knows; oh, God, he knows. They both do; it's just that this has always got to be one of them things you don't speak of, but he's bloody well speaking of it now. He comes quick across the room, crashes through all that. Mr Barker breaks without a word, and of course, Nell breaks herself right along with him, without a second thought on the matter. He pins her arms up behind her head and kisses her, hasty on the burning lips. She lets him drive her up against the counter in the sunlight of the early afternoon, his lovely hands heavy on her garters. _

'Mrs Lovett?' It's his voice, his real one, what brings her back to herself, and draws her out the dream. She takes a half-glance over. He is not, of course, kissing her on the counter, or any suchlike; he never was and he certainly never will. He's sitting by the window like he's done all day, eyes patient and expecting her answer.

'Mr Barker?' is all she can make herself say properly. Nell's voice comes from her lips like a breath, half torn from her wretched daydream, the other half still there.

He tosses up a glance. He's not even particularly looking at her anymore, but rather a slight bit to her side. She's gazing at him with her head cocked to one side, not quite sure at all what he's meaning by it. 'Tea water's a-boil,' he tells her after the odd few moments.

All sudden, the kettle's screaming in her ear, and there's steam in her eyes; she hadn't even noticed there _was_ a kettle a moment ago. 'Oh! –' she cries, with a bit of a gasp on her lips. Her cheeks are bright red; they're burning up awful, the both of them, while she takes the kettle off the heat. 'Of course,' she tries her best job at laughing to Mr Barker, 'I'd quite forgot the tea!'

She chances tossing him up a smile, but she's filled with so much shame that she can't hardly even look at him. She pours his tea with positively shaking hands, cursing herself all the while. She's aching for another few swigs of gin, but she could do without having him see her like that. She stirs in the cinnamon, what he likes so much, and fancies herself a very wicked woman. He's come to her, dear man, seeking some consolation over his poor wife, who's screaming the day away upstairs. And Nell can give him all the consolation he likes, but not without having these bloody daydreams all the time, about illicit affairs what won't never happen.

Mr Barker loves his wife like a husband is supposed to love his wife. Nell loves her husband ever so dear, but not at all in the way she should. Mr Barker's a lovely man, she thinks, while she curses herself for being such a horrid woman. She mixes him up the next cup of tea, her fingertips trembling with bitter anger towards herself. She's got this powerful longing to throw herself behind the counters and cry; but she puts a cheery smile on her lips for his sake. She carries over his tea-cup to him and sets it in his hands, cradling the slight brush of his knuckles on her fingertips. 'There you go, dear,' she mutters to him, soft all over. 'Top-up,' she whispers.

He looks up, catches her down-cast eyes before she's got the time to turn away. 'Thank you,' he tells her, his voice and his eyes both hearty.

She straightens up and starts making her way back to the counter, but stops when she's half-way across the floor. She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder. 'Oh,' she says, 'don't be silly, sir.'

***

Nell and Mr Barker are both sitting at the table by the window. She tries what she can to glance out the window every so often, but mostly it's getting to be such a lot of trouble to take her eyes off him. Which she don't suppose is too much harm at all; she's pretty certain he don't notice her looking at him, not just now. He gets struck with such a peculiar, lovely strength when he's troubled with something. Not that he's doing much talking of it, mind; it's all in his eyes, poor beautiful things they are. She flicks her gaze up, just quick. In another world, she might come forth and hold him for eyes like that, but in this one here, she can't do nothing of the sort; wouldn't be right. Well, she's doing what she can for him, which isn't really all too bleeding much; but she does hope it might suffice him a bit.

His bad humours have come and gone all day, poor man; he really is worried sick. She can tell, 'cause his humours come on particularly strong when all the grunts and screams go from upstairs. The walls are ever so thin in this place; she always can hear everything what goes on up there. That said, whenever anything's gone on down here, the next day, sure enough, Mr and Mrs Barker both knew about it without anything having to be said.

Well, it _has_ been a bit of time, hasn't it, now? There are grunts and screams to be heard a lot more often; the whole building's groaning, it seems like. So, only natural that Mr Barker's in the bit of a bad way he is. You could chop his tension with a knife, you could. His breathing is hard, and he's laid his shaking fists on the table. Nell's looking on, offering him up some comfort with her eyes. She isn't quite sure what to say, or how best to fix a temper like that from smooth, kindly Mr Barker. She wants like awful to give him a back press, but she don't suppose that'd be none too proper at all; particularly not today. So, she does her best to make herself as quiet as he is; and the two of them stare at the table, listening to the muffled shouts.

The shop bell rings out all sudden, and they both give a bit of a start. Nell looks up quick to see a man making his way in the door. 'No, indeed, sir,' she calls out across the room, standing up just hardly enough. 'I'm closed today all day!' She lays one hand on the table-top and the other on her hip, tossing him out with her eyes.

The man stands in her door's threshold. 'Closed?' he says with his eyebrows raised up.

'Yes, sir.' Nell takes her hand off the table. 'Bit of unexpected something come up today, you see,' she says, and flicks her eyes to the ceiling. 'Come back tomorrow any time you like, sir,' she tells him, still standing across the room, 'but I can't have no custom today, sir.'

He shakes his head, switches his eyes upwards. 'Your sign could do with seeing to, then, ma'am,' he tells her, all short with her.

'Thank you, sir; straightaway!' she calls back to him, but he's already got back out the door by then. Nell waits for the door to slam shut, and then gets herself up across the room. She flips the shop sign in the window, so as outside it says 'Closed.' She peers out the window for a while, but don't find too much of interest; so she crosses the room back to Mr Barker. 'There, now,' she smiles to him, chancing him a small pat on the arm as she sits in the other chair.

He flattens his hands out on the table-top. When he looks at her, there's something like awe in his eye, and, she'd like to believe, the tiniest little slice of affection. Which is certainly good enough for her, even if it's _not_ the particular kind of affection she's got for him. 'Mrs Lovett.' He speaks slow and soft, with his eyes on hers, and she can tell the humours have let him free for half a minute. She smiles, sweet, and turns her face up to meet his gaze. 'You don't need to do that,' he tells her, tossing his head towards the shop sign.

The foolish sentiments she suffers for him surge in her veins while she tries to think of what to say. They rip through her stomach and her throat, and she casts her eyes down quick, just until she can steady out her breathing. This whole thing leaves her dizzy and powerful nigh on tears, all sudden. She's barely holding, dreading her next blink; she's got a fear it might take little more than that to wet-streak her face. He's got this bloody peculiar way of breaking her heart without meaning to, all the time. Not that he knows that, mind, and with any luck he never will. He'll only know that she's kind, and he'll never need to know why.

'Oh, mercy,' she tells Mr Barker; after her insides are calmed down and she can stop clenching her jaw, she finds she can look back up and hold his eyes with hers. 'But, yes, I do,' she says.


	4. Chapter 4

It can't have been more than half a minute since the hall clock's chimed the hour of three, when Mr Barker's shop bell rings out in the sunny street. That thing's got a right mouth on it, it does, is what Nell's thought such a lot of the time. Anyone comes in to Mr Barker's parlour, and you can hear the bell ringing halfway down the street, just like it is now.

There's a slam on the door upstairs, and in hardly even a moment, they can both see the doctor making his brisk way down the outside steps. He's a tall man, the doctor is; he's not young any more (nighing on a bit old, to tell the truth), but when you look at him, you can still see his youth in him. He's the sort of doctor as walks away swinging his bags. He's the sort of man you'd peg for being a gangly lad as has never grown into himself, no matter what birthday he's took this year.

Nell leans her head down a bit, hiding her eyes in a curl of her hair, and trying what she can to avoid the doctor's glance. Not that she's really so averse to him: he's a nice enough sort; that's not the problem. It's more like, just now she can't think of much else but the times he's seen her at her worst. _Good God_, she can't help thinking; even Albert's not seen her like _that_.

She can't hardly even say she's seen herself like that. She's had to have the doctor called on her twice now, but of course, there was nothing really come of it, and her memory of it's scatty at its best. Still, for what she _can_ recall, she turns her head out the window. He's kindly enough, he really is; it's just a bit of bad luck that he's a half-reminder – something of a ghost, like – of things she'd rather press out her mind.

Still, he's the same man, he is, as comes in for supper in the shop every Sunday evening, and chats away about doctoring while she fixes him up a pie. He tells her about what things beer will do to cram up your insides – not all at once, mind, but over a long bit of time. He tells her that, but he still orders up a mug of ale, so as she don't know particularly _what_ to think. She don't never mind his being there, in the Sunday evenings; and she does her odd bit of chatting away to him, too. They're both great chatters, Nell and the doctor are. She supposes he's got to be, for his profession, and so does she. She smiles at him _then_, when he's in for supper; but not today. Today, in some odd place between all the tea and all the screams, something in her's got stirred, so as she can't even look him proper in the face.

She hears the wood creak as he takes his slow steps across the floor, and her eyes hit the table. She's got this awful longing to squirm, all violent, but she keeps herself still as a marble statue in a square. Her neck's going all in knots from the effort, and she's got her hands clenched round the underside of the table where no one can see; but at least she can keep the pretty smile on her lips. Her eyes she casts right downwards; it's her blasted eyes as would most likely give her away, you see. Not that either of them two are all to like to be looking to her, anyhow.

She hears the wood creak as Mr Barker stumbles up hasty from his seat crossways from her. Nell's stomach knots up again; it's all she can do to hold her shuddering breaths and force up another few smiles for him, not that his two lovely eyes are gazing on her any more at all. She casts him up a quick look, hasty so as he don't see it. She's got spoilt right awful, she supposes she has today. With him here all day, with her doing him odd, small favours, it was almost like he needed her, in certain moments, and good mercy, but she don't want but to have him need her just as much all the time. She curses herself without saying a word, pinching hard at the skin of her palm under the table. She hasn't even got the right to think of him like that, but, well, try telling that to her head.

'Mr Barker,' the doctor calls to him, with his usual kindly tone what tastes like snowflakes, and of course, the beautiful man by her side snaps his head up like the doctor's his very salvation. He's frantic in his glances; he needs the one word hasty spoke from the doctor like he'll never need aught else in his life, and certainly like he'll never really need a cup of tea. 'You've got a daughter, sir,' the doctor tells him, with a bit of a sweet smile on his face, so as he's sure to know that everything's all right after all.

'A daughter …!' he thralls, rushing right across the room. 'Oh …!' The sound's halfway between a gasp and a sigh, both strung up with joy. Nell gazes at him from the chair, half-afraid to blink. She listens to his voice, sounding like it does. His voice is low, and half-surprised, and wondering. And lovely; always lovely, he is. She really is happy for him.

'Yes, sir,' says the doctor, shaking Mr Barker's hand. 'Congratulations, sir.' They're all the way across the room, but Nell can still see Mr Barker's hand trembling from where she sits. Good mercy, but he's got the most beautiful hands she fancies there are in the whole world.

'Thank you, sir.' He nods to him, earnest all over.

The doctor tips his hat. 'Of course,' he says. 'If you'll pardon me, though, sir, I should take my leave.'

'Oh –!' says Mr Barker, and steps out the way of the door. 'Yes, of course.'

They exchange the odd few nods of the head before the doctor collects himself to go. He tosses a glance over across the room, to the window where Nell's still in the chair. 'Good afternoon, Mrs Lovett,' he says to her.

'Afternoon, sir.' She smiles up to him, with her eyes still cast down and her heart bending a bit in her chest. Well, he _would_ notice her, wouldn't he, now, on the one day in her whole sodding life when she willed herself to be a background piece. He tips his hat again, this time at her, and makes his way out the shop door: 'Closed,' but still not locked; she didn't have the time.

Mr Barker takes a few steps across the floor, and then turns, staring all sudden at Nell over his shoulder. She lifts her eyes up to him; she'll never be troubled looking _him_ in the face. No matter what's happened, his beautiful eyes remain all the time a comfort to her, though she wouldn't be the first to tell him so. He looks at her like he's just hardly remembered himself for some sort of obligation to her, as though she'd even half-expected any suchlike from him at all.

Nell lets him go with her eyes; without a word, begs him not to stay with her any longer than he has to. It's over now, and he can have everything back. Today, like she mentioned in her thoughts, was the sort of thing what's like to happen in her dreams; but all her dreams end, so this has got to end too, and it does. He's all too sweet a man for his own good, she sometimes thinks that Mr Barker is.

_Go_, she's urging him, all soft in her thoughts, but she can't seem to make her mouth form the word. _Go._ She wants to say to go on and see; she wants to tell him that his wife and his little daughter matter so much, the both of them, and that she don't matter much at all, really. He hasn't got any sort of obligation to her; it's not to _her_ his duty's put itself. How she wishes it was, sometimes, but in the end it isn't; and hers is not to him.

She yearns for him every time she sees him pass down the stairs in the morning, at eight o'clock like clockwork; and sometimes she thinks she's got herself burnt in Hell every time he looks at her, but little matter that makes. No, she reminds herself; such a foolish, bad-aimed sentiment, no matter how strong, don't make a bit of concern to either of them, not now, not when his lovely wife's just gave him a daughter. Nell bites down hard on her bottom lip. She might have had two daughters by now.

She tilts her head up and makes ever so certain not to break Mr Barker's gaze on her. She holds his sight with hers, refusing to blink, her eyes wide and dark on his. He can't know what she's thinking, of course he can't, but when she looks at him looking back at her, his eyes are so kind that for a moment, she can believe he does, even if by just a bit. She swallows, her throat all sudden not so knotted, her breathing a bit easier. He always does have his odd way of doing her so much comfort without even having to say a word – without even meaning to, she sometimes thinks. None the less, he _is_ a comfort to her, and he knows it pretty well.

In the end, though, despite any half-thought of a sentiment he might harbour for her too, he's got a duty and a life, and it's not to her. She nods to him just slight, hardly enough for him to even see, but she knows it suffices to let him know, in the one way she can, that it's all right, that it'll always be all right. She's resigned to it; he's a good man, he is, and, well, it's all she can really ask to be a piece of him what he don't too often think about. Being close to him at all makes her heart slam like thunder as it is, which is certainly good enough for her. She knows perfectly well they'll never see a thing more, and it's all right; her slight half-nod tells him that.

Still, there's this look in his eyes, like he just couldn't live with himself if he shouldn't say _something_ to her, after this whole time today. 'Thanks very much for the tea, Mrs Lovett,' he tells her in the end, nodding back in her direction, and turns right round to leave.

'No need to mention,' she says while she stands back up, but by the time the words are out her mouth and she flicks her eyes up, he's gone away and she's standing alone, talking to no one but herself, so it would seem. She supposes that it's all it should be; and she knows bleeding well she'd have done the very same thing if she was him.

The shop, like it says outside, is closed, but she's not particularly certain as to what else she can do; so she makes her way back across the room the counter. Her steps are shaky, and she finds she can't move very well at all. Quite sudden, and without any warning or reason, there comes on her a fierce, awful burn of a pain deep in her chest, ripping through her all at once, sufficing very well to make her gasp. Her sight goes hazy for a bit of a moment, and one hand takes a hold over her chest and her neck, but it's deep enough a pain that she can't reach it, nor do a thing to stop it. She can only stand there with her breath stole, one hand gripped round the counter's edge so as she won't fall, and the other gripped at her sudden pounding heart.

***

Nell is sitting hunched up on the wood floor, shoulders pressed against the back of the counter, knees pressed tight into her chest. She's got her face stuck in her skirts, and her arms up over her head; and she's crying like a child. Her face is slick with tears; and they fall hot onto the skirt of the lovely pale blue dress she has on today. It takes all the effort she's got to make herself quiet (the walls being ever so thin as they are), and the trying makes her whole body shudder and shake. Her breath comes in short, sharp little gasps, but that's no bit of worry to her; she knows that breathing don't travel like sounds do.

The pains in her chest went away as quick as they'd come on, after just a few odd moments. The day's caught up with her, though; perhaps that's why. She's all alone, of course, but still it's making her cheeks turn red. She can't even remember the last time she cried like this without all too particular a reason. She had crying what she couldn't stop last Christmas, and then the February before that, but she had her just reasons then. Now, she hasn't got a thing to say at all.

While her tears fall down her face, Nell rests her head on her knees and lowers down her hands. She moves a string of her hair behind her ear, so as she can hear proper. Upstairs, Mr Barker's daughter is crying already, and quite the pair of lungs she's got on her too, by the sound of things. The crying, she thinks, will most like turn to singing when she's older. Nell takes that to be a thing the Barkers' child's got from her father; well, really she's never heard Mr Barker sing, but it seems like he's always humming, and she can tell by it what a lovely voice he's got himself. Nell could have told you that just from hearing him talk.

She lifts her head back up. While she's thought about the child's crying, and about Mr Barker's beautiful voice, her own crying has stopped, at least for now. She leans her head back against the counter, a bit more calm, strangely, than she'd thought herself. She gazes up to the ceiling.

She can hear Mrs Barker talking, all soft like usual – to the child this time, she knows, being as there's such a lovely bit of warmth in her voice what wasn't never there before, in her words to Mr Barker. Nell ticks a bit of a half-smile. Well, certainly she's had her doubts, but perhaps Mrs Barker will be a bit of a better mother than she'd thought. She has it in her to be, at least. Nell don't think too much of Mrs Barker, but she can read her, easier than she can read a book. She wonders, fleeting, what it is they've called their daughter.

Nell gets herself back up; she isn't shaking any more, but her heart's still pounding from the tears. She comes quick across the floor and locks up the shop door, draws all the curtains. She can hear Mr Barker talking upstairs, too. Whether it's to his wife or his daughter she isn't too certain, being as it's clear he loves the both of them. She can't hear what he's saying, either; she never can. In his tone, though, she's never heard him sounding so pleased as he does now. She leans against her closed door, her breathing still shaking by a bit. All sudden she feels her throat growing tight again, but bites it back and shakes her head as quick as she can, to ward it off.

She crosses the floor again, so hasty she very near trips. Her hands fall on the cabinet, while her breathing speeds back up. She opens the cabinet doors, takes out a glass and the gin bottle. She goes across the floor; she hasn't got anything to take care of in the shop today. Mr Barker was the first one in, he was, and the last, so it happened. That being like it is, she's decided, she won't see any more of her shop today.

She shuts the parlour door behind her and makes her way across the floor. Albert's favourite chair, the nice one with the cushions and arms on, is sitting in the middle of the room like always, with a table-stand just by it, next to the clock – fifteen past four o'clock, is it already? Nell flicks at her eyelash with her fourth finger; there are tears pricking away at her eyes again. She sighs, and decides she hasn't got a thing else what she can do. So, she settles herself in the chair and pours herself a shot-fill of gin.


	5. Chapter 5

The lovely wood clock across the room chimes the hour of seven and gives her a start; she'd been half dozed-off by now. Each strike it makes seems drug-out ever so much longer than it is, and each one makes her head scream a slight bit more than the last. They're like agony, all of them, until the seventh one strikes, and the clock falls back to its sleeping place. She reaches forward to the table, with her eyes just hardly half-open. Her fingers clutch round the glass neck of the gin bottle; and she takes it into her lap, along with the cup. She pours herself another shot-fill, her eighth one in three hours. She gropes round the table-stand to set the bottle back in its place. She's having a bit of trouble seeing much at all. She's been crying, she has, and been drinking; and, well, her eyesight never was all too good to start with.

She takes a shaky breath. There are still tears in her eyes. She wraps her arms up round her shoulders; a bit of a tear falls down her cheek. She grabs up a pillow from behind her and sticks her face in it so as not to sob. Her cheeks are burning red, the both of them. Normally, you see, she isn't like this; she can't be got too easy. But, well, in the last two years, she _has_ got a weakness or two what's not too hard to find. Of course, she'll be just fine by the morning. Still, for now the lovely cheerful tones carry from upstairs, and Nell's whole body aches while she thinks of how it hurts to be awake. Perhaps all she needs is another good bit of gin. She turns her head to the side and half-shuts her eyes. In just a minute, she's thinking, she'll have herself a ninth shot-fill.

The door between the shop and the parlour creaks open, all sudden. Nell half-opens one of her eyes, glancing where the shadows dance on the walls, from the darkened shop to here in the parlour, where she's lit a lantern somewhere across the room. Albert's got home; and he's standing in the doorway, looking at her, just like he was this morning, and like he has most mornings they've woke. Nell cracks a smile, her head still resting on the chair's cushions. Albert (sweet, constant man as he is), is the only thing what ever she can count on; so she tries her best job, for him, at being ever so much more sober than she is. 'Evening, dear,' she says to him, but she can't hardly make out her own words.

He comes across the room to her, sees the half-empty gin bottle by her side. She knows very well that he don't like it when she drinks heavy. It makes him worry, and of course she don't like worrying him. She sneaks nips and drops of gin into her tea, most times, rather than have him worry for her. Still, tonight she's sitting slumped in his chair, drunk off her head; and he's busying himself with setting the cap back in the bottle. He tucks it away in his coat-pocket, so as she won't see. He glances down to her after it's been hid, and sees what her eyes look like. 'Have you been crying?' he asks her.

She looks up, in his eyes. She can't say she hasn't, not to him, and certainly not with both her cheeks still stained with old tears like they are now. 'Yes,' she tells him then, lacking a thing else to say. 'I have.'

'And drinking, too, I see,' he says to her. Nell gives a slight nod, and Albert kneels down by the chair. He's quite the odd bit taller than she is, so it's only now as his head's at her level. 'What's the matter, Nellie dear?' he says. He's searching in her eyes for some hint of a reason; he's come home to find his soothing, lovely wife in a state like this, and he can't particularly tell why.

She looks deep in his eyes for a split half of a moment, and then rips her gaze away sharp. Her nose is prickling, like it tends to do just before she cries. She takes her eyes off him, switches them down the floor beside him. If she catches eye on him looking so sweet for even another moment, she'll come flying all apart, she can tell. She clenches her jaw for a moment; she won't cry, not just now. She gives a side glance over to her husband. 'Barkers have a daughter,' she whispers to him, catching his eye with hers for just hardly a hint of a second.

'Oh, Nellie.' He reaches over and takes up her hand, speaking to her all soft. He don't say too much at all, but it's mostly in his tone, it is; she's never heard a man sound so quietly sad. Her fingers curl round his hand, and she's got a bit of a half-smile on her mouth. He's made her feel a bit less foolish for her silly heart, what's shattering in her chest. 'Nellie,' he says, taking her little fingertips against his lips.

Sudden and hasty, she reaches forth and kisses him on the mouth for a while. All the gin she's had has made her mouth go sloppy, but she sits in his chair and kisses him all the same. After she's finished, he lifts his eyes and looks at her. He licks his lips clean, his hand hardly a fingertip's length away from her knee. She knows a few of his fingers are coming nigh on trembling. She ticks a smile and takes up both his hands in hers, pulls on them while she stands. He gets up to his feet; she stumbles for a moment, but catches herself in the end.

She takes his hands and tilts him round the floor, presses him up against the parlour wall. She kisses him again, this time more craving, and he kisses her, too, this time. He takes his arms round her waist and holds her against him, feels her fingertips clutching round his shoulders. Nell presses her head into his chest. 'Oh,' she whispers, quick and urging in her tone, 'please; please, take me to bed, please.' She lifts her chin a slight bit and switches her eyes to him, and he sees her whole face pleading with him.

He reaches down to her and kisses her, just once again. She's already fumbling in the dim light with his waistcoat. 'Nellie, you're too drunk,' he tells her, but he don't make a move at all to stop her hands.

Her hands stop themselves for him, as it happens, though, without him having to make a single odd shift from under her. Nell's hands freeze up where they lie, fluttering just over his collar. She bends her head up so as she can see his face. '_Please_,' she begs him this time, eyes growing wide against him. She lifts up one of her hands and takes it against the side of his neck, gentle, cradling the edges of his neck. 'Albert,' she says, soft and nigh-on plaintive now; and she's so close her gin-soaked breath sets right against his mouth.

He reaches down and kisses her again, both hands locked tight round her waist to steady her. She brushes the toe of her boot against the ankles of his trousers, near the back. She smiles when he clutches at her waist and at her arms. She can't help but feel how he's got to want her, how he sighs into her ear. 'All right, dear,' he murmurs to her, and gives her a kiss on the forehead, hushed and long, a bit like a lullaby she'd always fancied she'd have sung by now. Nell's hand tightens round her husband's shoulder. She nods to him, a question what's been needing his answer.

He slings his hand round the side of her waist and leads her off down the hall to the bedroom door, holding her all the way so as she mightn't fall over; the gin's not made her what you'd call steady on her feet. She leans her head into his shoulder while they walk, until they've both got through the door. She holds her fingers on his back while he bolts the door. They're the only living souls on the bottom floor, she knows, but still he bolts the bloody door every time, like clockwork.

He turns himself round and takes a few steps towards her, one hand still heavy on her waist. Nell lets herself fall straight backwards, her head landing somewhere near the pillows, and a bit of breath shoots out her lips at the impact. Albert sits on the edge of their bed, takes her foot up in his hand; he's starting up with unlacing her boots. Nell tilts her knee a bit, but he's bent on it. Boots or laces or stockings are very little matter at all to her; but he likes to feel her skin, he says. Still, he can't undo the laces very quick, and he don't let her help him with it. She's had too much to drink, too, so the moments drag by like months. Nell drums her hand, finger by finger, up against the sheets, while Albert fumbles with her bootlaces.

Once he's got them undone, he tugs away at the heels on her boots. She points her toes a bit, and her boots come right off in his hands, the both of them. He reaches over and sets them on the floor, quiet, by the bed. Nell watches him, biting all slow on her bottom lip. She half wishes he'd do something like throw them hard against the wall, but he isn't the sort to throw any thing at all. He's rather a gentle sort of man, that much she can right say for him.

He comes to her then, throws himself against her. He kisses her on the edge of the neck, and she grunts a little in his ear. Her fingers are winding up round his neck, trying to start on with opening his vest buttons; and his hands are up her skirts. It isn't never half-bad with him; he's certainly well enough learnt on how to handle a woman. He's quite the odd bit older than she is; so, he's took quite the odd few lovers before her.

He's working both his hands up below the strings of her garters, struggling with getting them unhooked. His breath is steaming hot on her forehead, while he fumbles where he can't see. Nell tilts her head up and mutters into his shoulders. Every sense she has in her is set all on flames; and every time he shifts his fingers even a slight half bit, she swears she can feel it in her bones. All the gin she's had's to blame first, she knows it is, but certainly he don't hurt the cause, not with his hands driving away at her thighs like they are now.

When he's got both her garters undone at last, he rolls down her stockings and sets them on the floor beside the bed. He's back up against her in half a moment's time, and takes her right leg in his two hands, brushes the edges of his lips against her knee-cap. Nell bites down hard on her bottom lip, trying the best as she can to take a half-swallowed laugh and make it into a sound he'd make more use of. She looks at him; she hadn't meant to, but she's ticklish since half past ever. She's still not decided if she thinks he knows it or not.

Albert lingers too long with his mouth on her knee, and before she even has time to gather a thought, she's let out a full laugh with her head pressed back on the pillow. He looks at her strange for a half bit of a moment, and then lays himself down against her, fingers sweeping all her hair to one side of her neck. He proceeds with kissing her from ear to shoulder, but her stubborn, curly hair keeps snaking back round the other side of her face.

Nell struggles to get her breaths down; she might dare, even, to say he's took all the ones she'd thought she had. She gasps a jagged inhale, and he asks her, with all his breaths took away too: 'You all right?'

'Yes,' she sighs, turning up her shoulder for him, 'keep on.' He takes her at her word; he keeps on very well. He runs his head along the side of her neck, kissing her just where the vein runs. 'Ooh,' she whispers while her fingers pluck the suspenders off his shoulders, 'God.'

His trousers and under-clothes are both down round his ankles, and finally he's down against her; and she holds him close to her with her knees. Both her legs are stuck up in the air, and she presses her feet as far together as they'll go, trying as hard as she can to lock her feet behind his back. She's never been able to lock them, though, and this time is no different. It's no matter, though; she's ever so far beyond perfectly content with his grunts in her ear, his hands gripped round the back edges of her thighs. He screams before long, into her neck and the pillows below; and she screams too. She screams herself dry, her chin resting on his shoulder, her face tilted upwards.

When it's finished he rolls over to the side of her, cheeks still red, and he can pretty well see she's got no more breath either. She reaches up and rests her hand in the top crook of his arm, against his sweaty shirt. 'Thank you, my dear,' she says to him; she's _almost_ got her head back now. 'You're ever so good to me,' she murmurs on his shoulder.

He gives her a smile and leans down, giving her neck another gentle kiss. ''Twas a pleasure, dear,' he says. She rests her head against his chest and hums a bit. Nell and Albert, husband and wife, lay together for a passing while. In another half-hour, her fingertips brush across his chest in a certain way, and he fancies another go. She don't object, of course; far be it from her. He undresses her this time, unwraps her like a very early Christmas present, and makes love to her again; and rather well, she might add, too. This time it's half enough sufficient, at least, so he takes to sleep in hardly past half a minute after.

Nell stays with him, with her arms wrapped round his chest, until she's ever so certain he's really asleep (he don't snore all too soft, does her Albert). She snakes her arm out from under him and slips out from bed, leaving him perfectly dead to the world. She crosses the room to the closet, takes out a smooth robe: pale blue, her favourite. She can feel her throat and her heart-pace quicken again. She ties the robe's strings up round her, hands still shaking like they've done all day. She finds, after, that she can't do nothing but pace, round and round the room. She don't pace too often at all, but if ever there _was_ a night for pacing, certainly that'd be this one.

All sudden, it seems, all her insides are halfway up her throat, and she clenches her hand round it while her stomach churns and her cheeks burn right red. She rushes, hasty, out the bedroom door, past the hall into the shop, her bare feet silent on the wood floor. She grabs on to a silver bowl what's been sitting on the counter, head spinning all wild, while her stomach comes up. When it's over her eyes still burn, and she spits once more, to get the taste out her mouth.

Nell sighs and straightens up, taps her fingernails against the counter-top. She's still a bit ill and jumpy inside; the smell's half-enough to make her sick all over again if she leaves it much longer. So, she takes the bowl and dumps its contents out the back window, where no one in particular will see it anyhow. She spins straight round and pours herself some water from a jug on the back counter, swishes it round her teeth. She crosses again to the back window, lets it and the odour slide past her lips, the both of them. She couldn't very well go back to bed reeking like a pile of sick, could she?

None the less, the smell's all off her now, so she sets the bowl back on the counter and shuts the shop door behind her. She walks down the hall through the parlour, cracks open the door to the bedroom. She leans a bit against the threshold, her head half-cocked to one side. Well, she's not woke him, then; Albert's still snoring away. Her head shakes, a half smile hits her lips.

The downstairs is silent, all of it. She thinks, fleeting, that she really should get herself to bed, 'stead of sitting up working her head to the bone like she is. Still, she's a bit hesitant, for a reason she's not quite sure. She stands, half absent, in the middle of the floor. She can still hear the Barkers' daughter crying upstairs.

She glances up; she thinks perhaps that Mrs Barker must have gone to bed (as well she might, of course), 'cause it's Mr Barker's voice she can hear now, trying his best to quiet the child. She listens, turns her ear up. She thinks she can even hear him singing. He don't _never_ do that, not even if you ask him. He is, of course, a wonderful father, just like she'd a hunch he'd be. Well, good for him, then. Nell thinks sometimes that she _would_ be ever such a loving mother if she wasn't such a bloody shipwreck. She _does _try what she can not to lose heart, not even tonight. Perhaps, someday she will be.

She tilts her head to see that Albert's really still asleep; and then, when she's certain, she kneels by the foot of the bed, wraps her arms round the bed-posts, and whispers a pleading prayer that God will kill this affection she's got for Mr Benjamin Barker. She straightens up after, insides still not well, and climbs into bed beside her dear husband, but she don't fall to sleep for quite the time.


End file.
